Mirror Mirror on the Wall

While the weather outside might be frightful, and the sewers are anything but delightful, all that can be forgotten for a time in the tunnels that delve below the City to unmeasured depths below in days of yore by ancient dwarves. What horrors lurk beneath lie waiting to be discovered behind the seal erected hastily by the Artificers of Alexandria and guarded ever since lest the unwary should chance into these tunnels by happenstance, or worse, whatever's in there breach the surface and threaten the City.

Anyway, it seemed like a fascinating idea to Ga'Elian to grab a couple fellow adventurers and go check them out?-at least more fascinating than huddling by a tavern's hearth getting fat on beer and idle chatter. Accordingly, he is here in the antechamber awaiting the arrival from the Artificers Hall above of his invited guests: Darius and Asteg. Unfortunately, the tunnels are too straight to comfortably accommodate a griffon, so the majestic beast is off hunting in the mountains today.

Darius really isn't too keen on going into the sewers, not after an incident with the black pool a few weeks ago, not to mention he's still suffering some emotional scars and trauma from being a victim of the green-eyed vampire and waking up with bites all over him and a scarrified tattoo of a snowflake on the back of his neck that he tends to scratch absently. That said, normally he would be with Fluffy, but because Aika is still freaked out about his disappearance and so Fluffy was left to keep Aika company and cheer her up.

Azteg came down puffing along his pipe and with his pack over his shoulders - healers pack, extra equipment. He has his new bandolier on - magical, clearly, stuffed with his Dragonspitter and tons of spare ammunition and gunpowder and spare items to clear and maintain the weapon. His small wooden shield is secured to one forearm as he approaches the other two, chewing on the stem of his pipe. "A fine evening for adventure into the dangers of foul artifice, my friends, yes?"

Ga'Elian smirks and says, "A fine evening, indeed." He turns to the guard and says, "This is all of us. We're ready to go in now."

The guard responds, "Okay, but you know that nobody will come rescue you if you don't make it back, right?" At Ga'Elian's nod, he turns the great wheel in the middle of the door and it swings open. On the other side sits another guard at a desk, a pair of decontamination stations beside him and an unlit hallway leading ahead some 40 feet before turning a corner to the right. Ga'Elian strides confidently through the great seal door and asks his companions, "Would one of you like to take the lead?"

Darius makes a face at Ga'Elian and says, "Not me, last time you dragged me on an adventure and I took the lead I ended up with less money than I went in with and a couple new scars to boot."

"Very well then," says Azteg as he sets the pipe stem between his teeth and draws his wrought artificed flintlock. "Let us sally forth, then! The smallest man in the lead!" He takes a few steps forward, carefully.

Ga'Elian smirks and says, "That's the ticket," and follows next in line.

The hallway is unremarkable, but where it turns, it descends in a long set of steep stairs between two unmarked walls, no handrails provided to give extra assurance. Down and ahead, the stairs curve around to the left and out of sight. The place is dark, dry, and dusty.

Azteg settles in to trying to look for tracks and other evidence of monsters as they move around, paying attention to the walls and the floor as he takes careful steps along the path and around the corner.

Darius watches the rear, not wanting their escape route cut off in case they need to retreat quickly. He says, "Hope you guys are keeping track of where we are and where we're going, if we get lost we'll be in big trouble.

Ga'Elian doesn't seem at all worried. He responds, "In the many times I've been down here before, the layout of these tunnels has never been the same. They defy mapping because they magically shift. That said, I've always been able to get out one way or another."

After what seems like forever, the descent levels out, then suddenly opens into a wide, rough-hewn chamber. The floor is solid granite, covered in a thick blanket of dust that seems to have not been disturbed in centuries, but there are three sets of double doors along the left and three more along the right. The doors in the middle of the right side are sitting slightly ajar, and a blue light glows dimly from within.

Azteg grunts quietly and nods. As they come around the corner he lifts a small hand to stop and peers at the doors. He gestures to the other man and then points at the door with a blue light coming out with a gesture of, 'Should I try to peek in?"

Ga'Elian says, "Sure, but let's try to keep out of sight in case something's there, okay?"

Try as they might to remain stealthy, some things can't be avoided. For example, to get into the room off the chamber's right wall where the blue light is glowing through the crack requires opening the door wide enough to allow the gobber and elf to squeeze their bodies through. As they do, the door squeaks badly and requires a foreceful shove to budge at all, clearly having not been moved in a "Very Long Time" (TM). Fortunately, the room beyond the door seems empty, but for what appears to be a large and ornate mirror hanging on the further wall. The mirror is unquestioningly the source of light, as reflected in its surface is not the room, nor Azteg and Ga'Elian, but rather a grassy hilltop under a dazzlingly blue sky - like summertime in a verdant meadow. Mounted in a fixture above the mirror, a dial spins ever so slowly, but as it reaches a certain point, the image on the mirror flickers and ripples, then changes to reveal a human in black leather attire and carrying several weapons. He looks out of the mirror as if looking through a doorway that suddenly opened right up in mid-air before his face.

The portal appeared, but the figure in black walked past it. Many moments later, the two in the room would be able to hear the clacking of footsteps, as great quality boots were treading down the passageway in a way that suggested their wearer wasn't even trying to be stealthy. From down in the distance they'd likely be able to see the orange glow of a burning torch, and as the figure got closer, they'd be able to see that he was just like the figure in the reflection moments ago. All black leather and pale skin, though the lower half of his face was hidden behind the collar of his coat that, when tied together, functioned perfectly well as a makeshift mask. Though whether that was to hide his identity(doubtful, given how distinctive the man was) or to protect his nostrils from the smell down here(more likely), remained to be determined.

In any case after a few moments, Rondel looked over at the rest of the party, speaking as if he'd been traveling with them all the while, and not as if he were meeting them for the first time tonight.

"There are foul magics at play here. I passed by a trap, an attempt to lure me in to who knows where. We had best be on our guard."

Azteg starts to raise his pistol when he recognizes the figure, "Friend Rondel," he says with clear surprise. "Friend Ga'el and I were exploring these tunnels when we saw this blue light coming from this room - and that portal seemed to be in that particular mirror," he adds.

Rondel says, "If this mirror is creating glimmers, perhaps we should destroy it."

Azteg grunts and nods, "Allow me to examine it with magical sight," he suggests as he concentrates. He touches the clasp at his shoulder and wiggles his fingers, muttering under his breath in Goblin before touching his eyes to reveal Detect Magic to his eyes - at which point he turns to try to examine the mirror.

The mirror is certainly magical, with a strong aura of divination and an even stronger aura of conjuration, and the merest glimmer of an aura of illusion. Clearly the images pass through it in both directions, as does sound. The dial above continues to spin very slowly, but can be seen to be approximately one third of the way from its last shift to its next.

Ga'Elian looks at the mirror with the fascinated interest of an enchanter himself. At the dialog passing between Rondel and Azteg he offers, it seems we coild step through and eacape this place if we wished to. I'm not familiar, though, with wherever Rondel is. He might prefer to join us here rather than staying there. Anyway, I'd say the choice will be rather different if we wait more than another couple minutes, judging by the spinning of that dial."

A grunt and the Gobber says around his pipe stem as he concentrates, "Magical, yes. Strong - very strong conjuration, strong divination. Slight illusion there as well." he says, "The dial is perhaps half way around. That is the extent of my knowledge, we'd need an expert to know more."

Ga'Elian muses out loud, "I wonder if the mirror is sentient. If it is controlled by an entity with a mind, or whether it is following some preset program or is completely random." The dial is very near now to its next shift.

Rondel eyes the device warily, before drawing the brilliant bastard sword at his side, and stabbing it through the shimmering front halfway. There it would either resist, the mirror or sword would break...or half of the sword would go somewhere else. In any case, after a moment he pulled the weapon back to closely examine the blade for damage, or rust, or anything else.

"It seems like a bad idea to step through - without additional assistance and expertise, yes? It does seem with the dial that it's randomly changing to different locations - or perhaps as Friend Rondel says, a planned location. We could use my journal to map out each time the dial changes to a new place?" the Gobber asks.

The sword is utterly unaffected. During the thrust, it seemed to weigh the same, met no resistance passing through nor returning, and clearly passed beyond the mirror's presumed surface. Almost as soon, however, as Rondel withdrew the blade, the dial clicked, the mirror shimmered, and the image changed. Now appearing is the interior of one of the several boudoirs in Madam Heather's House of Escorts in Alexandria's Lower Trades District. At the moment, the room seems empty, but the bed is all messed up like it hasn't been straightened out since its last use. There is also a heady smell exuding through the mirror of too-strong perfume and oruch body odor.

Ga'Elian says, "Well, at least you'd want to make sure you weren't passing through it when a shift took place."

Rondel says, "I have heard of such a thing happening. The infamous Countess of Ardenbery, who dabbled in foul magicks and turned herself into half of a woman when she attempted to materialize elsewhere. She never did find her lower torso, though she lived for many years afterward. I have no desire to follow in her footsteps, to excuse the poor wording."

Ga'Elian looks around the edges of the mirror curiously, and soon finds a row of buttons concealed in the outer edge of the frame. He says, "Buttons. Ha. I wondered if there wasn't some kind of control built in. Let's see. There appears to be a different glyph engraved on each button.... Oh, right. That's an old writing style, but the characters are in Draconic script."

Rondel brings his torch closer to what Ga'Elian is reading, so that it's easier to read in general. "Draconic as a language always eluded me, the rules archaic and unintuitive. Perhaps we can copy these symbols and bring them to a scholar in the city to translate...I do have ink and paper with me.”

Ga'Elian says, "No need. I speak it. As for meaning, though, it's simply a series of characters in alphabetical order. This is the first one, the letter 'A', if you will."

A grunt from the Gobber as he scratches his jawline and chews on the pipe, "So perhaps you could use - we could use - that to dial a specific location? Of course that doesn't tell us what we would have to select - can we see that is selected now and translate that?" he asks Ga'Elian, "And map that against what it has now?"

As Azteg speaks, the dial completes another full rotation, and the image flickers again. Now appearing in the mirror is a grassy (not snowy) field dotted with a multitude of individual encampments grouped between a large bonfire on one side and the skeletal remains of a colossal dragon, sticking up as though half buried in the earth. Far and away, the vast majority of the campers are sith'makar--of all ages.

Ga'Elian says, "Well, the buttons aren't set at all, as far as I can tell... and /that/ is Mictlan. Anyway, I think we would be okay to venture trying to program it."

The man clad in black gives a little sound of disapproval. "Tampering with this object before we know about it seems ill advised. I shall not be a party to it."

With that, the man made his way back to town.

Ga'Elian watches Rondel go and shakes his head. "That's not exactly my idea of an adventurous attitude." He chuckles.

Azteg grunts as he chews on his pipestem, "I don't disagree wit' my friend, actually, I think too much could go wrong," he tells Ga'Elian, "I feel like we should have a few more people and someone that could diagnose that object a bit more, yes?"

Ga'Elian shrugs. "Sure. Besides, so far, we've only looked in this one chamber. Perhaps the other chambers have more information."

Again the dial completes a rotation. This time when the image shifts, it settles on the entrance to the Fire Lodge with Razen headed straight for it. Ga'Elian immediately recognizes him, of course, and exclaims, "Razen! Watch your step."

The warning is just a little too late as Razen steps through the gate quite obliviously and nearly stumbling onto the lower floor of the chamber but managing to catch himself. The half-ourch blinks several times as he realizes that the entire room has changed from what it had been a few seconds before. He looks around in confusion, noticing Ga'Elian right away and smiling in spite of the circumstances. "Ga'Elian! Ah..." He looks around again, noticing the mirror last and stepping away from it uncertainly. "Where are we? And how..?"

Ga'Elian smiles and says to Azteg, "Look, he came right through it with no ill effects except the surprise of it all."

Azteg looks unimpressed and says, "Yeah? Maybe, but I think it's still a bigger risk than I want to take. Tell you what, I'll head back up those stairs and let the Guild know where you... two... were last seen if you don't show up again in a day or two, eh?" He waves and heads back.

At this, Ga'Elian says, "They're dropping like flies, my friend. As it happens, you seem to have been the unlucky, or lucky as you may choose to see it, victim of a randomly shifting magical portal. Every time that dial on top make a complete turn, the image shifts to somewhere new." He points to the dial, which by now is about 3/4 through the next cycle. On the other side, a giantborn walks up to the portal and looks into it saying, "'Allo... wot's this, then?"

"Dropping like flies?" Razen questions the phrase and then shakes away his own question before waving automatically to the giantborn, offering a smile that's still very uncertain. "A magical portal aye?" He eyes it suspiciously. "We should probably destroy it before someone hurts themselves with it." He looks around. "Where is this anyways? I do not recognize where we are."

The giantborn takes Razen at his word and backs off. Just then, the portal shimmers again. When it settles, the portal settles on the kitchens in the basement floor of the Calithailin mansion in Charn. The view shows a slave's back side, as she puts a roast of some variety in a baking pan, and another slave adds logs to the oven fire.

Ga'Elian says, "Perhaps you're..." when the new image appears he continues in a very low whisper, "right."

Raw emotion darkens Razen's eyes as he takes in the slaves. The marks of ownership on them is clear and unlike Ga'Elian caution is not a strong point of his. Quickly he takes in the scene, and without hesitation darts through the gate to grab up the poor woman putting in the roast.

Razen grabs the woman 'round the middle and takes off back through the gate like there's fire under his heels. There's a determined look in his eyes though, a clear sign that he's deadly serious about rescuing whom he can.

The boy stands in shock, makes a split-second decision, and runs from the kitchen yelling at the top of his lungs. At the same time, the abducted cook starts to scream, "WHO ARE YOU? Where did you come from? And where... are... we?"

Ga'Elian steps between Razen and his captive and the mirror, careful to avoid breaking the plane of what should be its surface. He says, "Quickly woman, if you disappeared from your enslavement, are there others who would be punished?" The dial is about half rotated at this point.

The cook regains her composure as she begins to comprehend that, however it happened, she is not where she was. She looks at the kitchen in the mirror then at Ga'Elian and shakes her head. She says, "No one that matters to me remains there." Then she looks at Razen, and flinches, but relaxes all the same, uttering, "Thank you." By now, the dial is about to complete its next rotation.

Razen steps a little away from the woman to give her some space. He seems a bit contrite about having abducted her so rudely, but he offers her a smile anyways; careful not to flash his fangs. At least he lacks the larger teeth that some half-ourch have or he wouldn't have been able to hide them at all. "Everyone should have their freedom." His words are something of an explanation and a gruff way of telling her that he needs not her thanks.

The woman smiles, then a mul'niessa taskmaster brandishing a whip come running into the kitchen and jumps for the portal just as the dial clicks again. He is only partly through the portal when it shimmers again, letting his leading leg fall, bloody, on the floor at Ga'Elian's back as the rest of him and the kitchen resolves into one of the chapels of Althea's temple in Alexandria. There seems to be a prayer service in session at the moment.

Ga'Elian turns to confront the guard who disappears leaving naught behind but the bloody stump of his leg. He recoils from the gore and pinches his nose. "I'd say you're free madam. That guard will be lucky to survive the loss of blood, but he's lucky too, because we would have killed him."

"Indeed." Razen stares at the leg for a moment grimly, and lets his hand fall from where it was only millimeters from the haft of his weapon. "Welcome to Alexandria. Or at least I think we are still in Alexandria." He returns his attention to Ga'Elian who still has yet to explain exactly where they are.

Ga'Elian says, "Well, under it, I think. I'll explain in a moment, but first, it seems that the mirror is showing us a pretty good place for our guest to go, where she'd be looked after and given assistance to settle her affairs. He gestures to the portal and adds, "Just don't get caught in the shift." She kisses Razen on the cheek and says to Ga'Elian, "You're both my heroes." and jumps into the Althean temple.

Ga'Elian then explains, "The ever-shifting tunnels below the Artificer's Hall. I like to come down here from time to time to see what wonders the ancient khazadi left behind. I've yet to find the same thing twice, except when the prison of the pit fiend Mar'Tek was here. It stayed findable for months, but even then, the other tunnels shifted still.

The portal shifts again, now revealing the Throne Room of the King of Dun Mordren under the northern reaches of the Redridge Mountains.

Razen looks shocked by the kiss, but he watches the woman go without further comment. He seems to relax once she's left. "We really need to destroy this thing before it hurts someone innocent." He looks at it for some sign of how it's made. "What about that thing?" He points to the glowing shifting controller.

GAME: Ga'Elian rolls Spellcraft: (12)+20: 32

Ga'Elian says, "Are you sure? Maybe we could just turn it off? I mean, all the sign indicate it hasn't been disturbed for a 'Very Long Time' (TM) until we came along." He pauses then explains what he's observed. "I believe these are controls, but while none of them are set, it seems to be random. I mean, I suppose we could destroy it, but it seems like a shame to do so."

"I worry that if we merely turn it off that someone else will simply come along and turn it back on. Or it might turn itself back on." Razen watches the whole thing for a moment before reaching out toward the control. He's almost touched it when he draws his hand back more cautiously. "The last time I opened a door in a strange place it exploded on me but..." He moves a little away and /then/ fiddles with the buttons.

Ga'Elian looks at Razen as if a light just came on. He says, "Opened a door in a strange place? Hmm." He casts a glance at the room's door then walks over to it. He says, "The door's top hinge has Draconic writing on it, too. It says, "Occupied."

As Razen fiddles with the buttons, they move easily, but seem to have no readily apparent effect, at least yet anyway.

Razen stops fiddling with the buttons as it seems to have had no effect and looks at the door. Then at Ga'Elian. "Maybe this is the door we should be trying then." He motions Ga'Elian to move so that the elf isn't caught in the door jam, and then starts fiddling with it. Twisting the knob and opening and closing the door.

The mechanisms on the door yield no secrets to this probing, but the disc reaches another cycle and stops spinning. The mirror shifts to an underwater scene. Fortunately, the water appears to be NOT spilling into the room through the portal. The water is dark as though too deep to permit much surface light, if there is any, to penetrate so far under. Still there is a faint yellowish glow as if from below. All sound from the watery realm is muffled.

Ga'Elian says, "Well, I can't be sure, but I think you've managed to stop that disc from spinning."

The half-ourch stops fiddling with the door and looks at the mirror. "Now if we only knew what I did." He huffs and shrugs. "Well, what is important is that it is not going to hurt anyone else if it is stopped like this. Unless they go wandering in there."

A fish swims through the portal, leaving the water behind. Ga'Elian quickly grabs it and tosses it back through where it swims away. He says, "Yeah. I think most land dwellers are safe from it at any rate. Hey, look here." He points down at a sharp angle into the portal, as if at the source of the yellow glow.

Razen frowns at the fish. "That is unsettling. Think of all the fish gathering down here." He moves to stand beside Ga'Elian looking downward to catch a glimpse of what the elf is looking at.

In the distant depths is a golden city surrounding a castle seemingly built of a variety of coral and shells. Above the City, yet still far down from the portal's vantage point, there seems to be a battle between merfolk with dolphins and tritons with sharks. A pure guess would seem to indicate that the City belongs to the merfolk.

Ga'Elian says, "Perhaps if this room weren't 'Occupied', the portal would close? I mean it's just a guess, but I'd further guess that whoever built this wouldn't want it to be passable unless they were standing before it." He takes a quarterstaff out of his quiver and then says, "Or, we could still try to smash it to smithereens."

Razen is gaping at the fight. "We can not leave it like this!" That he seems certain of. He glances toward the door and then the control clearly torn. Quietly he replies; "Have you ever destroyed a magical item before?"

Ga'Elian thinks... "I don't recall for sure, but certainly nothing so powerful as this. Still, I'm confident we could manage it. I have enchanted several as it happens, and breaking a thing is universally easier than making it." He adds, "Fortunately, such complex items tend to require exacting calibration, and that's easy to disrupt. He then puts the quarterstaff back and takes out his bow instead. He nocks an arrow and fires it point-blank at the row of buttons. A puff of purple-and-orange striped smoke billows out of the mirror's face and the image becomes opaque, matching the surrounding wall as if the mirror's frame held no glass at all. As the room's only light source was the portal, the room now falls into utter darkness. Fortunately, half-oruchs and people wearing certain magical goggles happen to be able to see in total darkness just fine. He says, "There."

The half-oruch bumps the control one last time to make sure that it's not going to start back up again before giving a nod of satisfaction. "Good!" He flashes a grin at Ga'Elian. "Now we can leave here knowing that nothing will drop an ocean beneath Alexandria!"

Ga'Elian shakes his head. He says, "The explorer in me will spend days lamenting the possibilities that mirror offered for seeing and possibly visiting exotic places. Anyway, I suppose there was just too much potential for danger. Ah well. So, you want to see what else is down here or head back to the surface?"

Razen grins. "Explore more of course! I want to see what else is hiding down here!”

-End-